HOMESTEAD, Fla. – Police arrested a Homestead woman on a third-degree attempted murder charge after they said she smothered her 1-year-old daughter with a pillow while on a video call with her boyfriend Tuesday.
According to an arrest report, police were initially called to the Flagler Avenue residence of Ashley Diaz, 29, and her boyfriend, regarding a mother putting a pillow over her baby’s face, but were unable to corroborate the claim with evidence.
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Later on, however, police came back to the home, where Diaz’s boyfriend showed police a recording of a FaceTime call between him and Diaz that showed the crime, the report states.
Diaz’s boyfriend told police that Diaz “heard a lady in the background while they were on the phone” and then, suspicious he was with another woman, FaceTimed her boyfriend.
Diaz demanded her boyfriend show her “different areas of the property where he was working to make sure there were no women there” and “was screaming at him and telling him if he did not continue to show her the entire area around him that she was gonna kill (their daughter),” the investigating officer wrote.
Police said Diaz then began to “push and kick” the baby.
Police wrote that the video recording showed Diaz putting a “large black pillow” over her daughter’s face and head while the baby was on the bed.
“Diaz is seen pressing down on the pillow with enough pressure that the tips of her fingers appear to lose blood flow and turn white,” the officer wrote.
According to police, the video showed the little girl “flailing her arms and legs, possibly due to her not being able to breathe.”
Police said the baby was found in good health with no physical injuries.
Diaz told officers that she was upset with her boyfriend for “always degrading her” and told officers that she was “just playing” when she put the pillow over her daughter’s face, claiming “they always play that way,” police wrote.
An alleged confession was redacted in the report after police told Diaz they reviewed the video.
Diaz said she told her boyfriend she would kill their daughter “just to upset” him “but that she would never do anything to harm (their child),” police wrote.
Diaz was being held without bond in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center as of Wednesday afternoon, jail records show.